Rises The Night (The Gardella Vampire Hunters 2)

“So you’ve said, but I cannot help but wonder why you would endanger yourself so, O man of no violence.”

“Why are you angry with me?”

“With you? Don’t flatter yourself, Sebastian. It’s nothing to do with you. It’s anger at this whole life of mine that digs into me right now. I carry this responsibility that—despite your naive assumptions that there is a choice—I cannot choose to shirk. I’m lonely and see no end to it. I’m widowed and can see no other future for myself. I could have died two nights ago, and yet I willingly go back for more. Sometimes…” Here her voice broke at last. “Sometimes it becomes too much, and it turns into anger. And other times…other times, it is the only me I can be. The true Victoria.”

“There are very few of us who know what sacrifices you and the other Venators make. How your lives are not your own, though you might wish them to be. But without you and your kind, how different would the world be.”

Victoria was silent again. The anger she’d exposed roiled, then ebbed away, leading into an excruciating awareness of the scent of cloves mingled with salty sea, and a long-fingered hand clasping the railing next to hers. She became conscious of the night, and the fact that they stood at the corner of the ship’s stern, shadowed by mast, sail, and the poop deck. For all intents and purposes, they were alone. She heard the soft flap of the sails and the distant shout from one of the sailors.

“How odd.” She didn’t realize she’d spoken aloud until she felt Sebastian move next to her; not to look down at her, but to adjust the lapel of his jacket.

“What is that?”

“To stand outside in the night, alone with a man, and not have to fear for my reputation. I couldn’t help but think of all the times during the Season when I was coming out how careful one had to be not to be found alone with a gentleman, even when I was in no danger of having to protect my virtue. And now that I am a widow, it’s no longer such a concern.”

“Indeed.” He sounded bemused. “I’m wondering if I should be distressed at being considered no danger to your virtue.”

“If you were a danger to me, you would have stopped with the gentlemanly repartee regarding compensations. And I would have cut you off at the knees, just as I did some other gentlemen who thought that suggesting a walk outside on a terrace would give them the opportunity to be free with their hands. Among other things. However, I am sure you would not be so foolish, knowing I’m no ordinary chit.”

“I am not. And don’t believe for one moment that I will be led, Victoria. You are much smarter than that, and so am I.”

“I’m not interested in leading you anywhere.”

He laughed then. Not as though he’d heard something uproarious, but a low, rolling, knowing laugh that made Victoria more than a bit uncomfortable. “I could play along, ma chère, with this charade you are playing.In fact, I am wholly tempted to do so. Very tempted.”

He moved quickly, smooth as a scarf of silk, and suddenly she was caught between the rail and Sebastian, one of his hands on either side of hers, wrapping around the rail as she looked out over the sea and felt his warmth behind her. Long arms settled along her own, keeping her centered between them.

His breath was warm at the back of her neck, where upswept hair left her skin bare and vulnerable. “It would be very easy to allow you to provoke me into doing what you are too cowardly to do yourself.” The words prickled there, sending echoes all the way down her back.

“And what, in your warped mind, can you imagine I am too cowardly to do?” She was pleased her voice remained steady and as easy as the sea breeze when she could feel his height behind her—his proximity, yet no contact but for the bare touch of his hands alongside hers.

His mouth was at the top of her ear, just brushing the back of it when his lips moved. “As brave as you might be in facing down vampires and demons, you are too gutless to admit you fancy finishing what we started in the carriage. You prefer to provoke me with your arch comments, hoping I will lose my head and ravage you…whereupon you allow yourself to be convinced it wouldn’t be so horrible to succumb to your desires.”

She drew in an angry breath, her shoulders shifting back and her breasts lifting, and he moved his hands closer together, tightening his arms around her. “I—”

But his voice, though lower and more even than her outraged syllable, overrode whatever she would have said. “And then you would have an excuse for putting aside your suspicions and mistrust of me, your reputation, and your fears. The truth is,

Victoria, you want me as much as I want you. You just don’t want to have to make the decision.”

He moved, and now she felt him behind her, the unmistakable validation of his words pressing into the small of her back. He pushed her hips against the rail, holding her there from behind, as he placed a gentle kiss on the sensitive skin just behind her earlobe. His mouth opened, warm and sighing with breath, and feathered delicately over that same area, light and sensual, sending great, tickling shivers along the back of her shoulders.

“The truth is, Victoria, you don’t have to trust me, or to feel any emotional obligation to this alliance in order to assuage your desires. You need not fear I will be another Rockley and demand what you cannot or will not give.”

She felt his chest rise and fall behind her as he drew in a deep breath and kissed along the tendon that jutted from the side of her neck, for without realizing it, she’d tipped her head to the other side as if he were a vampire who’d caught her in his thrall.

Her knees wanted to buckle, but the railing was there to catch them and save her from that indignity. She’d had no idea—no idea—how much she’d missed this awakening, this enlivening of her body. Even his mention of Phillip did not allay the growing pleasure.

His hands had moved from the railing to her breasts, and they lifted in his palms when she drew in a deep, quavering breath and reached to touch his head behind her. One finger eased down beneath her bodice to find her nipple and brush over it, and then his arms dropped from her, hands moving back to the railing on either side of her.

Victoria tried to move, to turn to face him, but he kept her in position, looking out at the sea, with his hips and another insistent appendage. “No, you don’t, my dear,” he said in a most uneven voice, deep in her ear. “I told you I would not be provoked, and I won’t. And don’t think I will allow you to use the excuse of my earlier demands for recompense. I have decided you’ve quite fulfilled any debt you might have to me.”

She realized she was shaking, and damp everywhere, and quite suddenly alone.

Left alone, standing at the rail with the sea breeze brushing over her like the wisp of his mouth.

Damn him.

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